Oomph as Virgin Media UK Kills VIVID Ultrafast Broadband Brand UPDATE

A small development this morning as cable ISP Virgin Media has decided to replace the “VIVID” branding on their ultrafast broadband packages. Instead future packages will adopt the letter ‘M’ (assumed to denote Megabits) and their top tier 516Mbps triple-play bundle will be renamed from “V.VIP” to “Ultimate Oomph.”

Admittedly ultimate oomph does rather sound like how I felt right after falling down the stairs recently (it was just one of those days) but I can see where they’re going with it. Meanwhile their other broadband packages will go from, for example, “VIVID 50 Broadband and Phone” to “M50 Fibre Broadband + Phone.” We note the return of “Fibre” in the new titles, which might have something to do with Cityfibre’s recent court loss (here).

Meanwhile their other “Player TV” and “Full House TV” triple-play bundles are being rebranded to “Big” and “Bigger Bundles” respectively. This at least makes more generic sense than the old one. As a side note we believe that the “Ultimate Oomph” package will also be getting the same technical support feature as their Homework’s plan added on for free (i.e. priority next day engineer appointment to help get their connection back up and running as quickly as possible).

UPDATE 9:51am

As part of the above change Virgin will give customers with combined broadband and mobile bundles unlimited 4G mobile data – available for seven days – if they experience an issue with their service that results in a loss of broadband connectivity.

Customers can speak to a dedicated team to access the unlimited data and book a next-day engineer appointment by calling either 150 or 789 from a Virgin Media home phone or a Virgin Mobile SIM respectively. The service is available to both new and existing customers signed up to Virgin Media’s combined broadband and mobile bundles which launched at the end of April.

Jeff Dodds, Managing Director of Virgin Media, said:

“We know how important it is for our customers to stay connected and that’s why Virgin Media’s new service promise offers peace of mind, no matter what happens.

It’s a simple, transparent and straight-up commitment to our customers that we’ll keep them online with superfast unlimited 4G mobile data if they experience an issue with their broadband, plus they have the option of a next-day engineer appointment to get things fixed.

Our service promise is at the heart of our un-limiting Oomph bundle line-up which offers our customers an unrivalled connected entertainment experience in and out of the home – at great value.”

One bonus of adding a mobile plan to your broadband package (click the ‘Oomph’ button on their website) is that you’ll also benefit from a faster broadband speed. So by taking a mobile SIM (2GB, 5GB, 15GB, 50GB or Truly Unlimited data, texts and calls) average broadband speeds offered in these bundles increase from 50Mbps to 100Mbps, 100Mbps to 200Mbps and from 200Mbps to 350Mbps. Customers also have the freedom to change their mobile data allowance each month.